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Supercharged_Z06 writes "A short film entitled Sintel was released by the Blender Foundation under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license (YouTube link). It was created by an international team of artists working collaboratively using a free, open source piece of 3D rendering software called Blender. No Hollywood studio was involved in its making. Pretty remarkable what can be generated these days with open source software and some dedicated, creative talent. If a short film of this quality can be produced without Hollywood right now, imagine what will appear a few more years down the road."

Oh wait. That's because the tropical storm killed my DSL, and I'm stuck on dialup.:-| Anyway... I bet it looks fantastic in HD - as good as Final Fantasy Spirits Within. The software they used is called "Blender"? What other open source software exists for development? Like, is there a OSS clone of PaintShop or JPEGedit?

I see GIMP, Mypaint, Alchemy, Inkscape, Python, Subversion - did I miss any? Which one of these can handle GIF (jif) and JPEGs?

The GIMP is an image editor roughly comparable to Photoshop and Paintshop Pro. It can view and edit GIF, JPEG, and a myriad other static image formats.

ffmpeg and mencoder are also important and powerful open source projects for video work including encoding, muxing and compositing. I'm not sure if those were either listed or used for this specific project.

and it does lack a number of very important features for professional work

Sadly, that describes a lot of the open source software for artists and musicians.

Maybe I'm missing the point, but I often wish that the developers of some of the big commercial applications for media production would put out Linux versions. I use Linux boxes a lot in my music studio, but for fileserving, streaming samples and offloading some processing cycles. The main recording and editing software is still either Mac or Windows-based. I need to use those VST, DirectX and AU plugins. I also need a professional audio layer and what's available for Linux still isn't ready for prime-time. Certainly, jack isn't ready.

I keep buying licenses for Cockos' Reaper because of their work on a Linux version. I'll keep supporting it because goddamn I'm tired of having two companies, both dicks, ruling the creative desktop market.

[...] it does lack a number of very important features for professional work. But it's perfectly competent within it's limitations. I don't use it, I use Photoshop because I need some of those important features

For over ten years now, whenever GIMP is compared to Photoshop somewhere on the net, invariably someone comes out of the woodwork claiming that GIMP lacks "certain professional features". Every time, I inquire politely what these features might be. What is it that "professionals" do or need that the GIMP can not do or provide?

I have never gotten an answer. Not once.

The one thing that is invariably mentioned is that Photoshop somehow allows you to work in a cmyk space. Which is of course the mark of the UNprofessional hack, since real professionals worry about light. Composition. Art. And leave the technology details of the print process to a bit of code that does the cmyk separation after the fact (which the GIMP has been doing for many years).

I have thus given up. I have concluded that those who claim some kind of "missing professional features" are just tools that have been duped into shelling out major dollars for an image editor; with capabilities that they could have gotten for free.

You too, as usual, claim some vague "features" that the GIMP is supposedly lacking. Which is a lie, of course: if there were any truth to it you would have mentioned such features to strengthen your point. Which you can't, because you've never actually used the GIMP.

Right now, of course, you're frantically googling in an attempt to find some such features you can then post here in some childish attempt to show me wrong. And of course you will deny having done so. 'Tis par for the course on the internets, I guess.

Lack of greater than 24 bit color is a deal killer for me. In my photo workflow, the raw images are 36 or 42 bit color and I prefer that my edits preserve as much detail as possible. There's a lot of shadow and highlight detail that is lost as soon as you drop to 24 bit color. I've also been very frustrated every time I try the raw support in GIMP. I use Bibble for workflow processing and there's no comparison between GIMP and Bibble (Linux version). For workflow, the UI of GIMP is useless.

Uh....the gimp can work with adjustment layers and 16-bit and 32-bit color? Oh wait...it can't? Crap. You might as well forget about working with camera raw files (12-14-bit) in glorious 16-bit color. Well at least the gimp allows you to mix color in cmyk. Oh wait. It doesn't? Crap. I guess you can forget about using it in any kind of real production environment where colour conversion is critical so you can send out files to print that should have the converted to within cmyk's limited gamut. When you go to print you need to know what your output is going to look like and potentially adjust things in that colorspace. Of course you obviously don't work in graphic design or the printing industry so you don't see the value of these features. Photoshop does so many more things than the gimp and it does them all very, very well. Even the panorama stitching features are above and beyond hugin and it gives better results too. HDR is nicely integrated as well. Yeah you can do a lot of that stuff with open source software, but not in the gimp and not all in one piece of software. For low res, 8-bit web graphics, sure the gimp is good enough, but outside of that it starts getting pretty ugly and quickly becomes the ghetto-fabulous image editor. Even Photoshop Elements kind of blows it away. The interface sucks too. I could go on and on, but if you can't see why the gimp is drastically inferior to photoshop, you really don't know much at all about what you are whining about do you?

Or, are you talking about the past? Sure, 15 years ago we didn't have 16-bit color, raw digital images, or any of that stuff. Can it be done? Of course. Is that the current state of the craft - no.

This is like arguing that the features in Blender are irrelevant because in 1982 you didn't need digital rendering software to make an animated movie. Of course you didn't - and you still don't. However, if you want something like the subject of this article, th

Perhaps feature wise they are close but havingused both, it is clear that Photoshop’s interfacewell not perfect, is vastly more thought out anduser friendlily than Gimp’s.

Comparing Gimp to Photoshop is like comparingSintel to Pixar’s Ratatouille. Yes, Sintel showspromise, but it in no way challenges Hollywood’sbest.

On Gimp:

If you want Gimp to gain ground, why does it stillfeel like it is aimed at code-heads? I do not likecompiling my own programs and like apps toinstall easily with a good simple installer or bydrag and drop. I do not wish to hunt around foropen source libraries which, for some reason,are not included but are needed to run.

Why is there not a user-friendly mac build thatinstalls easily and uses a native mac UI?

If http://www.pixelmator.com/ can do it, whynot gimp?

It’s all well and good that it can open PSDs(whose file format I hear is a bit of a nightmare),but can it work with smart objects?

Can I use it to open and edit Camera Raw filesas a professional and not feel limited by thetechnology?

I know photoshop is not perfect. In fact I amfinding less and less reasons to upgrade. ButI am sorry, Gimp is just not usable for me yet.

For over ten years now, whenever GIMP is compared to Photoshop somewhere on the net, invariably someone comes out of the woodwork claiming that GIMP lacks "certain professional features"

Layer groups, for one. Shapes for another. Variable text anti-aliasing for another. A sane MDI interface that lets find images and draw at the edge of the image without a lot of silly window resizing etc. for another.

Really, this was a question before Photoshop CS. Gimp has LARGELY caught up to OLD photoshops, but if you've looked at Photoshop recently, it's leaped ahead by miles. I know the unstable version of Gimp has a few of these features, but they're not stable yet afaik, and have been so long coming that it's difficult to see how your argument about not seeing the difference for ten years is well considered.

Three words: Layer Blending Options.
I could hand-light every layer in GIMP, or use the bumpmapping feature to achieve some semblance of artificial depth needed for textures, or I could just, you know, use something that allows me to do what I need to do 4-10x faster.
I used GIMP for about 10 years. I know what I'm talking about.
I bought myself a student PS license. To this day, I still do not even in the slightest regret that purchase.

I, for one, miss the tree-organized layers that Photoshop has. I get a number of PSDs from the designers, which have multiple webpages (of the same design, so they have the same header etc) in them. They're set up by organizing layers into trees, which means you can view a page design by setting that tree to visible. GIMP doesn't have these trees (not the last time I checked, a few months ago, anyhow). It's a relatively simple feature. I'm not a designer, I can't use GIMP or Photoshop for anything else than

Disclaimer: I haven't used Photoshop for years. I've been using Free Software exclusively for probably four years now, and in the time since then I've done a little bit of professional photo work, but for the most part I'm what you'd call an advanced amateur, or something like that.

For basically anything you'll need to do, yes, GIMP is completely adequate. It does, however, miss some key features that I would REALLY love to see from even older versions of Photoshop. Others have mentioned most of them.

The closest I have seen to an argument was color management including pantone, but then I realized something there. The argument was that with color management the monitor can be calibrated and pantone colors used so that the graphic designer sees exactly what the printed version will look like. In turn, that is critical because that's what the final viewers will see.

Then I realized it's bunk. The final viewer will view the printed image an any combination of natural sunlight, crappy to good fluorescent lig

I can easily pick up any two pieces of media depicting Superman's cape, put them side by side and see that they do NOT match perfectly. Does everyone just really suck at it or is my point perhaps valid?

All you're really saying is that the obsessive-compulsive use of particular color management is deemed necessary because it is deemed necessary.

Then, of course there's the question of under what conditions must Superman's cape be exactly that color? Bright arc light, incandescent, sunlight on a perfectly clea

Both would be a lot closer if they started ignoring all the morons who think making integer levels have more than 8 bits is useful, like about 50 posts above complaining about Gimp's lack of what they call "48-bit color" (really 12-bit color).

If you have 16 bits it is moronic to use it for anything other than IEEE half floating point format. Many times more moronic if you have 32 bits!

Drinks all around for the folks behind this, but in many ways it's still far short of what Hollywood can do

Not really. Blender Foundations budget for this was about 30,000 Euro a minute. A typical Hollywood flick has a budget of a million euro a minute or more. Increase our funding by nearly two orders of magnitude to match that of hollywood and you can get a competitive result.

Do they have health insurance? Can they pay their rent? Or at they doing this largely out the kindness of their hearts? The largest cost for most animation studios is the talent not the software. Our software licenses are less than 1% of our annual expenditures. And since our software makes us considerably more than 1% more productive than the free alternatives that's not really a cost at all so much as it's an investment.

There is a saying in production "Computer time is cheap." It's not the large $10m render farm that costs a lot of money it's the 5,000 artists setting up the scenes to render.

I've worked on a lot of low to no budget films before and I always get annoyed and pretty pissed off when the director then goes around saying that the movie was only made for "$xxx,000". "Yeah sure you can make a movie for nothing when I donate tends of thousands of dollars worth of my time and equipment for free."

It's those MPAA distributed films that allow me to donate my time and talent to projects that I want to help out on. It's the big budget films that feed and house most of the crew and talent on low budget indie films.

There is a bunch of different schemes going about.- There are the national health insurance countries (like the uk) where it is all paid by the goverment and you can just walk in. (there is still a healthy market for extra insurance and private clinics)- There are some which have a mandatory minimum insurance scheme with privatised hospitals (like in the netherlands). You are obligated to have insurance, but the goverment limits the price of that insurance. At the moment it is around 100 euros a

There are a few things I expect from a movie. Sadly, Hollywood does not provide them.

Good Plot

Interesting story

At least believable acting

No profanity, immorality

No liberal agenda

Ability to view/archive/distribute in any way I desire

Other things I would like:

Great story

Nice aesthetics (appropriate visuals, score, Foley art, etc.)

Biblically sound message and subject matter

Basically, I don't care a bit about the latest special effects and celebrities. I don't care what kind of TV commercials they have. I would much rather spend $30 on a simple film that meets my needs than $2 on some over budget eye candy that doesn't. Furthermore, I am not effected by fancy advertising. I likely couldn't even name one single movie currently in theaters, but I can name at least three that have little to no advertising. As for distribution, I can burn my own CD. Basically, the only cost there is that of hosting the torrent (and the initial seeding). I'm probably a minority, but I think there are enough of us out there to present a market for cheap films.

Cinematically gorgeous of course. But did it have to be so fucking depressing though? I mean really did one of the first open source movies have to be about killing your pet dragon because you didn't recognise it?

I don't get it, why? The story is pretty terrible and there were plenty of independent movies in history, not like it's a first at that. It's well done for a short story on private time and with limited funding on a computer. Is that the part that's so great about this movie?

Yes, #2. And I agree that the story is terrible. But the main goal of the project was to demonstrate the capability of open source tools. Of course, the really big cost is not the tools, it's the efforts of the team creating the movie.

This is what I REALLY don't get anymore with the open source community. Open Source in the beginning was a great way to empower the individual and small users. I myself use Open Source all the time.

However, to YET AGAIN demonstrate the power of tools is missing the point. I know Open source is great. I am very very aware of that fact. Yes Fact!

But when will there be a real movie? Here is the thing. A mock movie while great is not getting the voice of the paying public. As one individual says. Giving away software is a good feeling. But getting people to part with their money and give it to you is an even better feeling.

So what I would like to see is a movie that people are willing to pay for and watch...

Until then what's the difference between this movie and Numa Numa guy (YouTube). And this guy has a network, etc, etc... While the Numa Numa guy might add questionable value to the overall scheme of things he probably is getting people to part with money to pay him...

You do realize that the point of the Open Movies isn't just to show off Blender's capabilities, but to actually improve it, right? Elefant Dreams, Big Buck Bunny and now now Sintel all resulted in a better Blender.

Considering that Pixar started off as a software development company who wanted to do some demonstration projects to show off their tools, that is certainly a valid point after a fashion. That they somehow were able to hire some excellent talent (after George Lucas dumped them.... thank goodness for that) and after a bit of shrewd business dealings were able to get a CEO of a major entertainment company fired (Michale Eisner) and take over a sizable chunk of the Walt Disney Corporation in the process of merely "demonstrating" their technical capabilities.... yeah I guess you could say that producing something with the tools can make a bit of a difference.

I don't know how much Pixar makes off of their "RenderMan" software suite, but the movies that they've made have pulled in a couple billion dollars over the history of the company. The argument that making demonstration projects as a way to push the software certainly has been proven true even if the "demonstrations" end up being successful in their own right. It also helps to show that you shouldn't be willing to settle for 2nd rate quality when the best is available.

after a bit of shrewd business dealings were able to get a CEO of a major entertainment company fired (Michale Eisner) and take over a sizable chunk of the Walt Disney Corporation in the process of merely "demonstrating" their technical capabilities

Pixar actually played a fairly minor role in Eisner's ouster, which had been building since not long after Frank Wells died in 1994. There were a number of political issues within the company and a number of critical blunders that Eisner had made since Wells

well, on that point you should note that it was not a simple hike, it's obvious that the journey was long, the dragon grew up and the 'girl' had a head of gray hair on her and she looked older.

The animation was OK, but it looked like some Anime type of story, because clearly this was a girl, right? Over the years shown her figure didn't change at all, she still stayed looking like a teenager, except for her face and hair.

Is there anywhere on an earthlike world where a desert, a dense jungle, and snowcapped mountains are within hiking distance? And where everyone speaks the same language?

The whole point of the movie is that Sintel's quest took so long that the dragon was already fully grown by the time she finished it. As for everyone speaking English, that's not too realistic given how English, French and Spanish-speaking countries are so widely spaced out in our world.

The movies (and games) that the Blender Foundation sponsors serve two purposes.

First, they act as a showcase for the technologies currently available.

Secondly, and far more important for the software, the work flow and features required by modern animation teams drives the development of the Blender on. Sintel is built with the latest generation of Blender - 2.5 - which is still in beta. The requirements of Sintel have been developed in Blender in tandem.

Someone said 'it looks like a game trailer'. While I suspect it was intended as a put-down, it is actually a tremendous compliment. Modern computer games pack huge artistic and development muscle, cost tens of millions of dollars to develop and pull in the technical muscle of huge companies. That Blender can enable a small team of deveopers, animators and digital artists to produce something like shows the capabilities of the team and the software.

Is this legal? I thought the MPAA cartel automatically owns the copyright to everything. These pirates should pay some sort of fine for attempting to subvert our capitalist democracy. Maybe send them to gitmo.

Sorry, but I completely cannot believe that MGM would ever commit that to 2700 screens or even act like they did. They would never commit that kind of money for such a ridiculously primitive-looking movie. Could be fun straight to video or something like that, but the CGI is far too basic to ever hit theaters.

And this film is different from the dozens of award winning independent films produced outside of Hollywood every year how? Hollywood has a monopoly on "dedicated, creative talent" these days or something? Thats news to me, most of the stuff they make is crap IMO. Kudos on making it with open source software, double kudos for licensing it under CC but otherwise its nothing special.

What's remarkable is that unlike Avatar or Pixar's latest and greatest is that this is a CG movie that doesn't involve giant expensive renderfarms and really brings CG techniques to the masses of amateur film editors.

Sure, there's a lot of crap independent art(film, music, still visuals, etc), but, this empowers the possibility of a CG equivalent of Clerks or The Blair Witch Project

What's remarkable is that unlike Avatar or Pixar's latest and greatest is that this is a CG movie that doesn't involve giant expensive renderfarms and really brings CG techniques to the masses of amateur film editors.

You've never needed renderfarms, the limiting factor is time.

Sure, there's a lot of crap independent art(film, music, still visuals, etc), but, this empowers the possibility of a CG equivalent of Clerks or The Blair Witch Project

Seeing as there are "hacker" (=amateur engineer) cooperatives renting office space in the middle of New York City, yes, a few grand a month is easily within the reach of "the masses" if they pool their resources.

Hell I know some people (saps and idiots) who spend nearly $1000 a month consuming media...

You minimize the ways in which it is different with your hard to take seriously "kudos". I can share Blender Foundation movies with everyone I wish. I don't recall being able to share copies of Hollywood movies or most independently made movies without risking litigation. When the Blender Foundation makes their movies they improve Blender and show off its capabilities to inspire others to use the program. Few Hollywood movies have that result for FLOSS. The Blender Foundation raises its money from us, the viewing public, who is inspired to buy their stuff because they treat us so well. There is no such similar inspiration for Hollywood movies or independent features; I'd like to contribute to more documentary filmmakers but movie makers that let me share the work (even verbatim and non-commercially) have set the bar high enough where I can quickly exclude the vast majority from receiving a donation from me. On the other hand, I'll be ready to buy a credit or a gold sponsorship for the next Blender Foundation movie depending only on my personal finances. Blender Foundation has developed a reputation for helping our community in significant ways. These are big efforts in themselves and should be sufficient to answer your question.

The Blender Foundation raises its money from us, the viewing public, who is inspired to buy their stuff because they treat us so well.

I don't understand, how is this different from selling tickets? Or going to see a film directed by Darren Aronofsky, without necessarily knowing ahead of time wether it's good or bad, because you like his work?

Films are funded on the basis of demand for ticket sales. If "Hollywood" doesn't think something will sell tickets, it isn't getting money. I think the problem with

No. Films are funded on the basis of demand for ticket sales as perceived by middlemen - middlemen who care nothing about quality of the end-product or even the long-term viability of the people making the movies.

The truth is, in fact, Hollywood gives people exactly what they ask for

No it does not. It looks at the majority of people, not people. Firefly anybody?It does not give the public what the public wants. Hollywood gives the public what it can sell to them. And then I agree with

with the scientific precision that only the free market can provide.

And that includes all the marketing tricks to make you think that 3D is the next best thing and you MUST see it.

A short film entitled Sintel was released by the Blender Foundation under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license (YouTube link). It was created by an international team of artists working collaboratively using a free, open source piece of 3D rendering software called Blender. No Hollywood studio was involved in its making. Pretty remarkable what can be generated these days with open source software and some dedicated, creative talent. If a short film of this quality can be produced without Hollywood right now, imagine what will appear a few more years down the road.

So which trends are we supposed to extrapolate out a few years?Dedicated, creative talent?Free and open source software?

Sorry, I just don't get the point of this. International, collaborating teams of dedicated, creative people can do amazing things with their bare hands, but I'm not dreaming of a bare hands movement taking over the world. Am I looking at this from the wrong direction? Is the story about amazing free software that brings non-dedicated, non-creative peopleto par with creative professional

Pretty remarkable what can be generated these days with open source software and some dedicated, creative talent.

Yes, yes... but what can be generated with open source software WITHOUT any dedicated, creative talent? Isn't that the more important question here? Creative people can produce works of genius with no technology to speak of, so who cares about that.;-P

It is licensed as Creative Commons-Attribution. They made a 35mm print for the premiere at the Dutch Film Festival. You're also perfectly free to make your own or show it on a 2k digital cinema projector. You don't even need permission to show it thanks to the cc-BY license, though films like Nina Paley's Sita Sings the Blues (under a similar cc-by-SA license) have done quite well this way by allowing theaters to show it. Audiences frequently appreciate knowing if a certain film like this is receiving a

I'm not really seeing what's so extraordinary about this or how it's connected to "open source" outside of some tortured link with Blender.

Using MPAA's tactics to minimize the creative output of actual professionals seems like a dumb argument which amounts to "see, they can do it without major financial backing." When it comes to entertainment out in the real world, it so happens that most artists just aren't willing to donate their free time for some illusory cause.

I'm not really seeing what's so extraordinary about this or how it's connected to "open source" outside of some tortured link with Blender.

The "tortured link" with Blender is that it was produced in Blender, as a project initiated by the Blender Foundation to promote Blender, demonstrate what Blender can do, and stimulate Blender development.

The open source angle would be that Blender is open source, and so is every other bit of software used to create the film (GIMP springs to mind).

They're going to be distributing not just the movie, but everything you need to re-create the movie (or a derivative work). The movie itself is only 14 minutes long, but the full distribution takes 4 DVDs! All under a CC license. Hard to see how you could call this anything but an open source movie!

it so happens that most artists just aren't willing to donate their free time for some illusory cause.

Funny, that's what they used to say about programmers! And, of course, no musician has ever put on, say, a benefit concert for charity. Everyone knows that true artists are motivated entirely by money and nothing else.

Well they replaced over-repeating the name "Emo!" in dialog with over-repeating the name "Scales!" so that it grates in your ears hours later.

But seriously, this one had the best story in the ED/Big Buck Bunny series.,, though it took a little while to get going and I wish the "twist" was a little clearer. Even a line like "My God. How long have I been..." trailing off would have made it more understandable.

I saw it coming the instant that it was clear she'd be squaring off with the dragon. Completely obvious. And then they flash the shoulder scar for a full second in clear focus. Who is their audience, green bell peppers?

Without the scar, there's nothing to differentiate this dragon from any other. If you didn't expect the results by the time the fight paused we get a big hint it's her dragon when he sniffs her. Even then we might not be sure it's her dragon until you see the scar. *shrug*
I think they pulled this one off really well. Maybe it wasn't a GREAT tragedy, but it was certainly decent, especially given the time frame. My props to the team. I liked this movie a lot better than Big Buck Bunny or Elephant's Dream - that one would've been a lot better had one of the characters not been named Emo.

What wasn't completely obvious was the time frame. Although they tried to make her look older, one has no way to gauge how much time had passed, she looked like a plastic doll throughout the whole film.

When the big dragon caught the small dragon in flight, it was pretty clear that it was the parent getting the child back.

Perhaps that was the whole idea, but looking at it from her perspective the whole story is stupid. Obviously, she would know exactly how long ago it had been since her dragon had been snatc

I needed to be spoon fed because the main character was mentally handicapped. I can't sympathize with brain dead characters' problems. In this case the hero was obviously a retarded nut job.

She walked across a desert, jungle, mountain range and grassland. Now I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and say that just those 4 things would take at least 2 months. Fine, fine she "Lost Track of Time" but she must have known that at least 2 months had passed. Hell she must have realized that at least 2 weeks had passed.

If Big Dragon snatches Little Dragon you can assume that Big Dragon is going to eat Little Dragon within a week. The Little Dragon is dead meat probably by the end of the day. Alternately someone who understands the concept of children and adults -- or aging -- would realize that maybe, just maybe Little Dragon looks like a little version of Big Dragon because it's a child.

So at the end of this quest our Hero should either find Baby Dragon with Mommy Dragon or bones. Alive baby dragon being held for snack is not one of the options. So even if the Hero lost track of time, if she had an IQ above 30 she should have realized that Little Dragon is a child of the Big Dragon and not food. The damn thing was even in a nest. The 'best case scenario' in this instance was the Hero was going to kill what she thought was her baby dragon's mother. The time scale is a red herring. If it's been a week or 20 years it makes no difference it's painfully obvious to even the lowly earth worm that small version, not being eaten, is offspring not food.

Now there are a few ways the writer or director could have turned this shit show around and at least brought it in for a clumsy landing. For instance if she found what appeared to be the skeleton of the Baby Dragon then she would have had motivation for revenge. If she found no baby and just fought the dragon for revenge it would have made a smidgen of sense. Maybe the baby then shows up after she kills her friend to emphasize the time passed. I don't find incomprehensible actions tragic I just find them incomprehensible. Tragic would have been letting her vengeful rage lead her to make a rash emotional decision which results in the death of her friend.

The hero deserves to be jailed and strung up by her ankles. She's a menace to society and too dumb to be trusted to walk free amongst us.

Also what on earth is a bandit doing on a random mountain ridge. Are there a lot of travelers at that time of year to rob? Isn't there a better road somewhere that isn't on a random cliff in a huge mountain range? Where does the bandit live? What does he do the other 364 days out of the year when someone doesn't happen upon his mountain peak? Is he a cannibal? Is there food up there anywhere? What does the old man eat? How did the old man get up there all by himself? I have a lot of logistical questions regarding that entire encounter.

Also what on earth is a bandit doing on a random mountain ridge. Are there a lot of travelers at that time of year to rob? Isn't there a better road somewhere that isn't on a random cliff in a huge mountain range? Where does the bandit live? What does he do the other 364 days out of the year when someone doesn't happen upon his mountain peak? Is he a cannibal? Is there food up there anywhere? What does the old man eat? How did the old man get up there all by himself? I have a lot of logistical questions regarding that entire encounter.

I'm pretty sure many of those details are up there on the site. I know that Blender actually has some built in stuff for video editing, so a lot of the editing may have been done in Blender. Check the site for more details, they tend to be pretty open about what they're using.

Did all the network packets generated during the project really only pass through free software servers and switches? Were the mics based on unpatented designs and built in-house? THESE THINGS MATTER!

Imagine if some packet went through a Windows server. The whole project, tainted. Might as well just rm -rf it.

It's like if you said "I wrote this program all on my own" and then it came out that you didn't do the materials science needed to mine the metals you used to build the electronics that is your computer, and then wrote the OS and the compiler and the editor yourself. Clearly, your program wasn't anything special, I'm not even sure if it could be called 'written by you'.

However you have to understand that things don't happen overnight. projects like Vyatta provide open source software for routing between open private networks, and closed public networks. in the not too distant future, I expect to see FPGA's become more and more popular, potentially even to the degree that people are able to build some basic ones at home. (likely a WAYS off, but one can dream)

without open source software, there would be no desire to move to open hardw

But what software did they use for the editing the video sequences? What software did they use for the music composition? Did they edit the script in OpenOffice? Did they manage the project using OpenProj?

Blender was used as the non-linear video editor, compositor, color correction tool, and all other 3d and video related aspects. The music was done in various proprietary software. Script don't know, probably openoffice and MS Word (It was worked on by different folks, I think the BI folks probably used Blender but the outside writer likely used MS Word). For project managment they used the OO spreadsheet and notecards, and paper, etc.